Mobile Dev + Test 2017 - Tutorials

Full- and half-day tutorials are consistently the most popular and highly rated part of the conference. Tutorials allow you to take a deeper dive into a specific topic so that you can learn to make improvements to everyday processes in the areas that matter most to you.

Tuesday, April 25

If you are a developer who is interested in the Swift 3.0 programming language, this hands-on workshop is for you. James Dempsey will introduce you to Swift from the ground up, as you learn both the syntax and concepts hands-on. Start with the basics and then build on them to come up to speed quickly on the most recent version of Swift. Learn fundamental pieces of Swift, starting with defining functions, control-flow, using basic value types, and collections like Dictionary and Array. James introduces the rich set of Swift types—classes, structs, enums—and shows how to add properties and...

Today’s world of smartphones has narrowed into two primary camps—Android and IOS—and to be competitive, you must develop for both. If you don’t want to hire two completely different development teams, use Xamarin. It enables .NET development teams to leverage their current platform and abilities to build truly cross-platform apps with a single code base. Mike Benkovich explores how you can start using Xamarin to build code for Android and iOS devices using C# and a common framework. Mike presents an overview of Xamarin and how it is used for cross-platform development. See how to setup and...

Let’s build a mobile app quality and testing strategy together. Whether you have a web, hybrid, or native app, building a test and quality strategy means first understanding your customers and your competitors and then testing your app under real-world conditions. Most importantly, it means having the data and tools to make quick, agile decisions on feature implementations and bug fixes. Jason Arbon guides you through the latest techniques, data, and tools to ensure you have an awesome mobile app test and quality strategy. Leave this interactive session with a strategy for your very own...

With the burgeoning number of mobile OSs, browsers, and platform combinations, comprehensive mobile app testing can be a nightmare—but it doesn’t have to be! Brian Hicks demonstrates ways to leverage the open source Selenium (IDE) with cloud services to test mobile apps across multiple browsers and platforms. Through hands-on exercises, experience how Selenium interacts with web browsers below the GUI to test actions, inputs, and expected outcomes. Examine how the Selenium framework works and learn how to expand Selenium tests to improve device and platform coverage. Employing a cloud-...

In this hands-on workshop developers, testers, and product managers learn how to quickly create connected IoT prototypes that can lead to commercial IoT solutions using pre-certified hardware and the ARM mbed platform. This prototype-to-production workshop guides you on how to employ crowdsourced libraries for sensors and peripherals using a cloud-based IDE and move data from edge sensor/processor to cloud platform as a service using a cellular module. Learn how to build successful IoT solutions based on proven business practices and avoid the critical pitfalls of IoT development. Join...

Wednesday, April 26

If you are an experienced developer who is familiar with the basics of the Swift 3.0 programming language, this hands-on workshop is for you. James Dempsey will move beyond the basics to take a deeper dive into the Swift programming language, with plenty of opportunity for you to practice the syntax and code. Topics include error handling, pattern matching, protocol extensions, custom operators, generics, and advanced techniques in defining and using classes, structs, and enumerations. Throughout this hands-on workshop, you will use the Swift REPL and Playgrounds to explore Swift and try...

The critical steps that need to happen before coding starts are all-too-often brushed over or skipped entirely. Developers, testers, product owners, and anyone at any level who is looking to refine or plan the critical UX portion of either a new product or revamping an existing product will benefit from this tutorial. Because user experience (UX) will make or break every new app, you have to get it right the first time. Jaimee Newberry explores brand/product voice and personality questions that help teams quickly map out the direction that affects everything—product experience, visual...

With a global market share of more than 86 percent, Android has taken over the mobile world. Since it’s relatively easy to begin developing Android apps with the free tools available, the Google Play Store has millions of Android applications. Many developers find their apps more frail with each update as adding a feature to one activity breaks something outside it. Unfortunately, it is usually the customer who finds these bugs and then punishes the app with bad reviews. However, Troy Miles says there is a solution—robust unit testing. In this hands-on workshop, Troy shows you how...

An API (Application Programming Interface) provides information or content to mobile applications, and in turn, the application presents this content to the end user. The API is a service and a crucial element in the success of any mobile application. Because this is a service, the fundamental question is: How can I test an API behind an application? In this introductory tutorial Marc van’t Veer focuses on what REST APIs are and how to test them. Marc starts with basic concepts of the message architecture in an API and then explains elements like resources, verbs, states, headers, and...

The sensitive nature of personal information stored on smart devices makes security testing vital when building mobile applications. Alan Crouch explores the unique characteristics of mobile devices—how they store data, the fluid trust boundaries between applications, and the unique aspects of device security models. Learn about the many different threat types and use cases that make security testing mobile applications so challenging. Alan offers hints and tips for comprehensive security testing of mobile applications during the development process, sharing when and where in that process...

From the gathering of data to its analysis and presentation, Microsoft Azure provides services to make architecting and delivering IoT functionality easy. Mike Benkovich illustrates the possibilities with MyDriving, a reference architecture application that shows the processing of data created by an OBD/II device through a smartphone proxy. He introduces the concepts of Data in Motion and IoT infrastructures and describes various Azure services and management tools. With this foundation established, Mike introduces you in a lab setting to core services including Event Hub, stream analytics...

Ever had a brainstorming session that failed to produce the quality results you hoped for? Think you already have good brainstorming sessions but know there’s room for improvement? Facilitating Super Rad Brainstorming sessions for eons now, Jaimee Newberry is an industry leader in improving brainstorming skills and surfacing incredible ideas. Work together as Jaimee facilitates a dialogue-based session that highlights tips and tricks for making your own brainstorming sessions more productive. Learn what supplies to bring, how to prepare for a session, and how to handle common sticking...

Today's web programming is no longer stuck on the desktop. Modern web apps live on mobile smartphones and tablets. In this hands-on session, Troy Miles shares how using Google’s Angular and Angular Material allows your single codebase to move easily among all these environments. Angular Material, the DOM implementation of Google's Material Design Specification, is similar to Twitter's Bootstrap framework in purpose but relies on Angular directives rather than CSS classes. A full UI toolkit, it adds widgets for everything from buttons to sidenavs. In addition to supplying widgets,...

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are changing the world of software. Jason Arbon explains how to use them as tools to speed up and scale up your testing. The future of mobile and IoT software testing will be a blend of people working alongside AI systems. These AI systems will perform most of the drudgery of software testing so people can focus on the creative and non-obvious testing that is most appreciated by developers and product managers. These AI systems will find insights across large sets of data that human testers simply cannot divine alone. In this interactive...

The Application Programming Interface (API) is a service and a crucial element in the success of any mobile application. Improving your API testing skills allows you to give your development team better feedback in more efficient and effective ways. So how do you test whether the API is easy to use, scalable, performing at an acceptable level, and secure? In this advanced hands-on workshop, Marc van’t Veer explains how to define and implement a dedicated test strategy, use tooling to compare versions of APIs and versions of a resource, use headers with tokens, create Java scripts to...

With the cost of microcontrollers, sensors, and Wi-Fi modules steadily decreasing, IOT is finding its way into many common devices in our lives and households. But, how do you get started with IoT development? What’s the best device to use? For this information and more, join Lance Gleason to explore the world of IoT by turning conference badges into Wi-Fi-enabled devices using the NodeMCU (ESP8266) open-source firmware and development kit, a 4x4 NeoPixel array, small battery pack, sensor, and voltage chip. Attendees will start by learning some basic electronics as we assemble the units (...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next big technology challenge for software testing. IoT testing uses concepts from traditional and mobile environments but has new testing problems and new patterns. Jon Hagar begins by examining how to use data analytics from error profiles and social media to discover the new error patterns in IoT systems. Usage data on IoT devices is growing rapidly and becoming a big data issue. Through hands-on exercises, Jon explains how teams can use data analytics to improve development and testing. Next, he uses the analytics to define real-world test...